


The Players

by Dale Pike (yesiamTHATdalepike)



Series: Spoiling Sherlock in Real-Time [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: #Norbury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:09:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9945605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesiamTHATdalepike/pseuds/Dale%20Pike
Summary: Series Four Subtextual Sherlock Slash SPOILERS in Real-time. Hartswood, the game is ON, you pompous pricks!





	

**Author's Note:**

> For, if we have seen further,  
> It is because we have stood  
> On the shoulders of poisoned giants.

John makes his way through the darkened backstage, squinting at shadows, avoiding props and other figures, of which he’s encountered surprisingly few. Although this is a good thing... given that being discovered here will get him promptly ousted back to the main audience... it does strike him as strange. Shouldn’t this area be abuzz with quiet activity? But the cast and crew milling about seem to be lower in numbers than he would have expected.  

Speaking of which. He chuckles as he picks up the strains of the familiar female lilt coming from the main-stage.

_“..._ _I suppose that is why he often looks a little bored when we three are together...”_

With an urgency driven by the desire get back to the play, John continues on his errand. It is first by sound, rather than sight, that he discovers the object of his search, in the low drone of baritone conversation. S and M stand off to one side, conferring quietly with each other. Their faces are lit from below by a candle in M’s hands.

Surprisingly, neither appears to notice his approach, as M abruptly cuts himself off in mid-sentence long after John has come within ear-shot.

The doctor nods a greeting, and repeats M’s last sentence. “What’s not “going to plan”? Finding your seats? You do know it’s customary to watch from the _front_ of the theatre, right? If you keep lurking around, someone besides me is going to see you.” As both of them look shocked, he further explains, “I’d know that shadow anywhere; do you really need the collar up when you’re inside?”

S eyes dart in the way they do when he’s still catching up on information. “You’re here. Tonight.” He does not sound pleased.

John claps him on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t miss this for all the tea in China. Our Molly is about to steal the show out there! I had no idea she was into this sort of thing... and who would have thought she’d have such a lead role...?”

S and M share a look. S opens his mouth and M silences it. “Yes, the unknown talents of Miss Hooper. She’s quite diversionary, would you say?”

He continues, in a hushed tone. “Look, I don’t know why you didn’t tell me, or why you’re skulking around the in the wings, but since I’ve managed to get proper tickets, you may as well come and join us; there’s empty seats to our right...”

Both Holmes brothers stiffen, but S’s face suddenly borders aghast. “Us...?”

“Whoo hoo!” Mrs Hudson’s voice is soft but unmistakable. She emerges from the same route John had discovered, tottering slightly in a way that accompanies a tip-toe, as well as the burden in her arms. John chuckles and takes Rosie from her, the crinoline from her skirt crinkling against his suit. She makes a small squeal of delight, which her father shushes gently.

“I’m sorry John,” their land-lady whispers. “She missed you immediately, and I didn’t want her to make too much noise.”

“Honestly,” M bristles. “Who brings a child to the theatre—?!“

Mindful of Molly’s voice, clear and innocent and about fifty feet through curtains to their left— _How wonderfully clever you are!  I hope it did not end happily?  I don’t like novels that end happily.  They depress me so much—_ John holds up a hand, indicating that M hold down his tone. He tilts his own head against Rosie’s. “Never to early to introduce some proper culture. And besides. We’re supporting a friend. If she fusses, Mrs H can always take her home—“

Mrs Hudson shoots him a look that says _Or YOU could._ “I’m your land-lady dear, not your baby-sitter. Next time, you could leave her with other friends.”

John shrugs sheepishly. “Well, actually, you know I don’t really have any other friends.”

S steps closer to him and takes his other arm. His voice is tense in John’s ear; rapid-fire and alarming, “You should take them both home. Your life is not your own; you have a daughter to think of. Go now, before—“

Lestrade, Donovan and newly-reinstated Anderson abruptly appear, all slightly out of breath. Lestrade looks pointedly M. “We’re locked down. No one in or out.” M receives this with a curt nod and the DI suddenly registers what the sinister civil servant holds in his hand. “Couldn’t you find a torch?”

John’s eyes dart back and forth between them, forcing the words out through a suddenly dry mouth. “What’s going on?”

Lestrade looks him and Rosie over, glances at the Holmes siblings and reluctantly explains, “Bomb threat. We got the call a few minutes ago.” At Mrs Hudson’s gasp, he raises a placating hand and continues; “it’s probably just a prank, but the information we were given suggested that it may actually be one of the doors that’s wired. We don’t have enough information yet. We need everyone to stay calm and stay where they are. The best way to do that for the moment is to let the play go on.”

S steps back away from John, folding one arm across his chest, the other fisted in front of his mouth in thought. Lestrade looks at Rosie and continues, “There’s a dressing room back through there,” he lays a gentle arm across Mrs Hudson’s shoulders and nudges her and John in that direction, “where we have some folks already gathered. Take the tyke and follow the officers instructions. It will be fine, trust me. Try to keep quiet, we don’t want people panicking before we’re able to make a controlled announcement.”

John feels his feet moving, but locks eyes with S. “What are you going to do?”

“Find it and diffuse it.”

“Who’s behind this?!”

“I don’t know...”

Mrs Hudson pauses in her furtive steps beside him and shakes her head at her taller tenant. “I hope it’s not your nutty sister again. Or that other little man that was obsessed with you.”

S smirks slightly. “Mrs Hudson, I assure you; not every incendiary device employed in this city is for my benefit.”

She clucks her tongue. “Oh, honestly. Don’t you think it’s a bit _convenient_ that we’re all here together? All the players, back in their—“

“Okay, guys,” barks a voice. “Where do you want this, eh?”

They all look over to the right rear entrance, where a stagehand in overalls is shouldering a large prop-wall. One side is wallpapered with an array of sepia nesting cuckoos, and, as she turns slightly, John sees the unfinished side is marked with a yellow, spray-painted number four. She’s about John’s height with similarly-coloured hair, the short strands of it poking out from beneath her cap. It’s a garish, camo-print, straight-brimmed affair—the sort that hunters in North America are fond of—with a some sort of speckled fish embroidered on the front.

She snaps her gum. “Look, this thing is heavy, so...”

“We’re not—“ Lestrade begins to explain, but M cuts him off. “We don’t need it until Act Three,” he snaps at her. “Take it back where it came from.”

With an eye-roll and a grunt, she backs up and recedes with her load down the hallway.

John carries Rosie to the dressing room and settles her with Mrs Hudson. The room bustles with both theatre crew and officers but the mood is calm. He finds a tray of muffins that appear to be there for the taking and offers one to his daughter. She is quiet anyway, but nibbles at it with glee. He tousles her hair and tries to sit still, feeling the familiar sense of a drawing-and-quartering.

_I could go help them._

_But my life is not my own. And I would never forgive myself if I were not at her side._

_But, at his, perhaps I can help stop this._

“Oh, go on,” his lady-lady tells him, arm around his child. When he hesitates, she prompts again in a whisper, “We’ll be fine. He’s quite useless without you, you know, and I really don’t want to be blown up tonight.”

Rosie mildly protests when he stands, and even moreso when she detects the weightiness of the lingering kiss to the top of her head, but is ultimately satisfied with calmly eating her muffin and lets him go without a fight.

As he walks away from her, the surreal quality that he has been wading in for the entire evening markedly thickens. John ideally wonders if he is anxious; if there now _is_ a touch of shock setting in— _bombs, why is it always bombs?!—_ when he notices the odd-looking array set up in one corner of the room and the two women attending it.

The first is sitting, clacking away at a small desk with an old-fashioned stenographer’s typewriter, which appears to be attached to a bric-a-brac of broken items with make-shift cables and wires. There’s a turntable bearing a round saw-blade that is ratcheted around by a fork and an old coffee can. An upside-down and opened umbrella lined with aluminium foil. The cracked case of an orange toy; its display scanning through indecipherable letters, as if it is translating the words she is recording into another language.

The second is the stagehand, standing before her with her hat in hand, removing something small from inside its brim. John strains to hear their conversation, without moving closer.

“—ike.” The typist is saying, without looking up from her machine. “What the hell do you want?”

“Use of your transmitter.” The stagehand drops to one knee beside her, unfolding the slip of paper, offering it up, meekly.

“I didn’t appreciate your comments.” Typist stills her fingers and looks up with a scowl. “You made fun of my friend. You made fun of me. Not so clever now, are you?”

“Perhaps neither of us is.” The other stands, tilting her head. “But I know who we’re _both_ smarter than. By a long-shot. Let’s send them a message.”

The first chuckles in spite of herself. Her eyes remain sharp however. “Why should I help you? You’re _nobody_.”

The second nods. “Exactly.”

John’s foot scuffs slightly on the floor and they both turn sharply to look.

The seated woman smiles at him. “You’d better take your place. This theatre is about to explode.”

The standing one looks at them both sadly. “No. It isn’t.”

She puts her hat back on. Reluctantly.

John backs up nervously until he is within whispering range of one of the officers. “That was strange. Are they supposed to be here?” he asks.

The uniformed man is unfazed. “Oh yeah. We do our thing. They do theirs.”

The doctor raises an eyebrow at him, but the man just shrugs.

As he makes his way through backstage again, he can see M’s standing at the cracked curtain, his mighty beak in profile against the lights on the other side.

 _“...don’t think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Hopelessly doesn’t seem to make much sense, does it?”_ Molly is delivering.

John starts a little as the deep response reveals who her co-lead is, at present. He joins M at the curtain and peers through. “Is that...?!”

“We’ve looked everywhere else. He insists that he’s certain the bomb is on the main-stage and this is the only way to look for it.”

“Well, if the doors are clear, then...?”

M rolls his eyes. “At present, we don’t have the authorities backing this opinion.”

“The crowd is going to be in an uproar soon anyway,” John hisses, watching S flounder on stage. But although the amateur detective in the bulky coat is flubbing his proposal to the besotted debutante, the crowd is enraptured. “I don’t get it... has no one honestly noticed that one of their main characters has been hijacked?!”

“Two.” M casts an appraising look down John’s form. “You’re underdressed, but it will have to do. ”

The doctor has to actually _check_ to reassure himself that he isn’t naked, which would confirm for him the suspicion that this entire situation is, in fact, only a dream. Rubbing one hand down his bulky suit jacket he raises the other in protest. “No one is going to buy this!”

“On the contrary. You should have heard the cheers when they realized the celebrity change-up.” M tilts his head. “Of course, you’re not quite as recognizable, but don’t worry; his star status will carry you through. Just try not to step on his lines.”

“I don’t know the lines!”

“Neither does he, but you’d be surprised at how intuitive it is.” M parts the curtain a tiny bit to show him.

 _“You dear romantic boy,”_ Molly is reciting with gusto, _“I hope your hair curls naturally, does it?”_

She’s enjoying her current position a bit too much, John thinks, hotly.

 _“Yes, darling...”_ S responds, hesitantly, but the crowd eats it up. _“...with a little help from others.”_

“See?” M chuckles encouragingly. “Ready? Look, I know this all seems a bit slap-dash, but you’ll just have to soldier on. It is what it is.” He places a hand on John’s back.

“This isn’t going to work!”

The gravity returns to M’s tone. “You have seven minutes.”

John can’t believe he’s actually finding a willingness to go along with this. “You mean until I’m on?”

“No, until the bomb is supposed to go off.” The hand between his shoulder-blades shoves him through the curtain. “It can’t be helped; you’re on NOW.”

Despite the sudden burst of stage lights on his retinas and the swell of applause in his ears, the only thought that accompanies John’s entrance is, oddly _What happened to your candle?_

When his vision clears, he sees S blinking expectantly at him, along with several thousand other pairs of eyes. “Uh...?”

“Muffins,” S says.

“What?!”

“Did you bring the _muffins_? We can’t have this scene without them.”

John possesses enough knowledge of the script to know that this dialogue isn’t close enough to fool all but the most ignorant viewer, as well as the fact that they shouldn’t be alone on stage at this juncture. “Where’s Mol—where’s... erm...?” he stammers, helplessly.

“Your lines?!” A heckler calls out from the middle of the audience. But majority of the crowd doesn’t seem to mind at all.

S waves a hand. “Oh, they both said we were cowards and pissed off.”

Mild guffaws and a smattering of applause. John struggles to retain his composure, mindful of the sweat beading on his neck under the heat of the lights. “We... we should, uh, look for...”

S nods and does a sweeping twirl, his coat billowing. “I should say so! Now, if you were going to hide _muffins_ on this stage, where do you suppose you would do it?”

Even though this shouldn’t be working, it seems to be, so John plays along, casting a nervous glance around the set. There are few props. “We have to hurry.”

“True. Though I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner.”

As he combs over the furniture on stage-left, John shoots him a look. _Knowledge of literature improved, then?_

 _My talents are approaching omniscience,_ S grins back at him from stage-right in a cheeky way that makes John’s hackles rise.

 _Cock._ “Well, they’re not behind here.”

 _Idiot._ “Nor in here. Perhaps they’re in that _hand-bag_ , wherever it is...”

John moves to centre stage. “If I were going to hide _muffins_ ,” he mutters, not really caring much about the ruse anymore, “I’d probably do it _here._ ” His fingers find the catch on the trap-door in the floor and flings it open to reveal...

...nothing.

Though it’s hard to be sure. The door flips open to reveal, instead of a shallow crawlspace, a deep, black well, void-like, opening like a maw unto hell...

He pokes his head in and strains his eyes in the contrasting darkness. Impossibly, there doesn’t seem to be a bottom.

S joins him, on his knees. “Nothing?” he whispers.

“Nothing. We’re running out of time.” John’s voice cracks in the whisper. “You have to do something. Now!”

“We can’t,” S whispers back. “Everyone will riot. I haven’t smoked _Him_ out yet, and I’m not going to lose _years_ of set-up...”

John marvels at the way he also can’t seem to find the bottom to his sense of dread. “What are you saying...?”

“I didn’t think this event would be so well-attended. And, since it is, it’s all got a bit complicated; I didn’t mean for...” S shakes his head. “But. MY way. It _has_ to be _my_ way, John...”

The doctor claps a hand to his mouth, ignoring the delighted _oo’s_ and _aw’s_ of the audience that accompany his seemingly melodramatic delivery. “ _You_ set this up.” He stands.

S stands as well. His voice returns to performance volume and cadence. “You have to understand...”

John grabs him by the shoulders. “Look around you. Who is this performance for, hmm? Who are you trying to impress?! The front row is going to hang on your every bloody word regardless of what an IDIOT you are! And the back is just laughing at the FREAK in the spectacle!” He sweeps one arm back, encompassing the entire audience. “You don’t need to entertain them; you need to SAVE them! While you’ve been blathering on, you might have noticed there are _real people_ out there. You need data?! You’ve got thousands of witnesses that have been watching this play all night!”

S casts a disdainful glare at the spectators in front of them. “The ones in the back can barely see us. They’ve fallen asleep or are thinking about leaving. And look at these morons.” He jerks his head angrily at the front row. “Noses so close they’re going to skin themselves on the carpet. How could they have possibly seen the whole picture?”

From somewhere in the middle of the room, the previous heckler calls out, “Hey, are you guys going to get on with it? I mean... it’s different... but I don’t mind so much anymore.”

A smattering of confused laughter, followed by an expectant pause.

John gives his partner a shake. “We have to do something. Now.”

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” S intones, weakly. The question is: what can you _make people believe you have d—“_

 _“Fuck_ make-belief. This is REAL! Stop wasting time _acting_ clever and _SOLVE IT!!!”_

His friend stares at him desolately. “I don’t...”

The crowd begins to mutter at each other.

John throws his arms up in exasperation. “Oh my GOD. You don’t know how.” He feels his hands falling on his own cheeks; fingers grinding his temples. “I should have realized that sooner or later this was going to happen... you get it wrong as often as you get it right...”

S holds up a hand. “I never _said_ I was a hero.” He scowls at John. “In fact, I believe I said the exact _opposite_ , did I not?!”

The crowd’s chatter rises, nervously.

John feels his lip curling into a snarl. “Forgive my gullibility. I forget that it really is a _trick..._ you have no _idea_ how to fly...”

“Just what do you _expect me to do_?!”

“WHAT _NORMAL_ PEOPLE DO!!!” As he turns to the crowd, he feels S grab his sleeve, but John wrenches his arm away angrily to raise his hands to the audience. “Everyone, it is imperative that you stay calm and listen. We need help.”

 _“Not like this,”_ S hisses.

John glares him down. _“You haven’t left much choice now, have you?”_ He turns forward again. “There is a bomb in this building and we need to know if anyone has seen it and—“ he raise his voice over the sudden din in Captain-tone, “—if you have nothing helpful to say, OUR LIVES ALL DEPEND on your cooperation.”

It works about as well as expected.

John and S watch helplessly as the viewers at the back scramble to exit and the ones at the front wave their arms and shout at them. The middle, of course, is an absolutely abject, flailing, noxious mess.

But, after a few seconds, John realizes that the front row aren’t panicking... they are trying to point and say something... it just gets lost in the cacophony.

He leans forward. “Please. We can’t hear you...”

The cacophony only gets louder.

“OKAY!” John shouts. “Short and clear. SAME THING, at the SAME TIME!”

“ _Impossible_ ,” S scoffs, beside him. “It’s like a collaborative One-Word Test. Nobody’s _that_ good.”

The crowd gathers a collective breath.

“ANSWER!”

S blinks.

John turns to him, running hand through hair. “Answer what?”

S’s phone rings.

Only three times. As he fumbles, searching through all pockets before settling on his left breast, it becomes apparent that the phone has stalled. He pulls it out anyway, staring at it in puzzlement. “It’s stopped. It doesn’t matter now.”

But John is gaping at him. “Don’t be so... sure...”

With the parting of S’s coat, John can see:

Wired vest.

Clock ticking.

1:29.

1:28.

1:27.

“ _How_ didn’t you _know?_ John gasps.

“How _didn’t you?”_ S replies numbly, nodding at him.

John looks down beneath his own jacket.

1:24.

1:23.

“Quiet,” S says sharply. “Say nothing. It doesn’t matter now...”

 _What the hell is WRONG with you?_ John thinks helplessly, staring into his friend’s eyes. For a moment, he wonders if S is bound by some malevolent agreement or threat... Moriarty? Some shadowy government or terrorist agency that holds an invisible gun to his head? What possible consequence could justify this?

John swallows. He turns his back to the crowd and sets his hands on his friend’s shoulders, gripping tightly. Begins walking him carefully backwards across the stage.

“What are you doing?” S asks nervously.

“The only thing that remains to do,” John tells him softly, surprised at how calm he suddenly feels.

He grabs the labels of S’s coat and rips it open, revealing the bomb to the crowd.

Embraces him, shoving them both off-balance toward the sightless void of the trap-door.

As they begin to plummet, he turns his head briefly to yell over his shoulder to anyone who may still be listening. 

_“Run.”_

 

...

 

S wakes in darkness.

For a span of time, it’s difficult to tell that he’s even awake; the gloom before his eyes is so utterly black. His voice attempts to croak out _John?_

It echoes, but not much. It must be a small room, then... and empty. He rolls to hands and knees; crawls. Despite furtive care, his head still strikes the wall when he reaches it with a startling crack. Hard. Smooth. Feels like glass. He runs one hand along it while the other soothes his forehead.

“John?”

Nothing.

S suddenly remembers and pats down his chest. Nothing. He stands carefully, with a hand raised above him, but encounters no ceiling. He finds the corner; then the next wall, then the next. Six paces by six paces; square.

No door.

“JOHN!”

The echo thunders back into his ears. He is alone. Some sort of cell. Back in Sherrinford? How had he come to be here? The theatre...

_...before the world went all awry..._

He has to get out of here. He can solve it; he must. “I need to go back!” he shouts, at the captor that must be listening, must be observing him, like a rat in a maze. “I can solve it; give me another chance!”

... _But still the game’s afoot for those with ears..._

 _Be calm and think,_ he tells himself. _You can do this._ He feels his way along the walls again; reaching up and down, scouring the entire surface for some kind of clue.

All that his fingers encounter is cold glass.

Six by six.

_England is England yet, for all our fears..._

S pounds on the thick walls; dull pain spreading through his hands, a dull panic rising in his throat. “Let me OUT!”

_...those things the heart believes are true._

_John._ He leans his back on the wall and slides down, bowing his face and grinding the wells of his eyes with his palms. _I’m sorry._

_Here, though the world explode..._

_...these two survive..._

And he suddenly startles at the realization that, instead of in his mind, these words are being spoken—softly... ever so softly—aloud.

“...and it is always...”

“Who’s there?! Where are you?!”

There is a scant lightening... a glow so faint as to be barely perceived at first, but _there._ S squints and tries to make out the source, before feeling his body recoil in shock as his brain begins to register the sight before him. Eyes, gazing back at him. Eyes above a pair of cupped luminescent hands; bones shadowed vaguely in the orangey-red flesh. A small figure, seated on crossed legs, in the very middle of the room.

And another, about six paces behind. And to the right. And left. And then another, and another, behind and beside these. Receding unto eternity. S feels their stares on the back of his neck as well. Thousands of eyes glint at him in the darkness. Thousands of heads lift and slightly tilt their faces; some left; some right.

“Mirrors,” he gasps. _The walls aren’t walls. They’re mirrors._

His singular companion opens its hands a fraction and allows more light to confirm his deduction; the army of bodies around him belong only to the two of them. One; a raggedy man with dark curls; the other...

“You’re just a child.” S swallows. In the dimness, it’s still impossible to make out features or colouring. He can’t even determine gender, or much else about the tiny human before him, though the shape and proportions of the face suggest a seven-year-old... perhaps younger.

“Oh, I’m older than I look,” it replies, eerily confirming this statement with a comfortable syntax that should not yet be so confident.

He tries to maintain a placid tone. “I’m Sherlock.” The tiny brow furrows, as if in doubt. When the child doesn’t volunteer anything, he continues, “What’s your name?”

“You know who I am.” Its voice, as his does, echoes slightly against the glass and its infinite image of an image of an image. _We are Legion._

He wracks his brain. _Eurus? Victor?_ It occurs to him painfully that he’s unable to call Rosie’s features to mind... has he really spent _so little_ time looking at her?... and with this, the realization that he’s never seen a photo of John as a child, either... he’s never considered the origins of the most important person in his life. “I don’t,” he admits, shamefully.

The high-pitched voice is sing-song for a moment. “I _did_ tell you... but did you _listen?”_

For an instant, he feels a chill creep up the nape of his neck, but forces himself into a more rational observation... this creature’s eyes are light, not dark.... both in shade, and in substance. He muses momentarily that they are, perhaps, too young to have turned colour yet, but dismisses this with the intuition that a darkness like Moriarty’s is ever-present. The tone of the voice is laughing simply; void of malice.

And there is something about the way it observes him, that now has S leaning toward defining her as a _she._

“What’s that in your hands?” he asks, and the child opens them, bathing their mirrored cell in a scant, but warm glow. It’s not, as he’d thought, a candle, but a small rectangular shape. 

She then pushes on it carefully and one end of it telescopes from the other, opening the gap that faces her, letting out more light. It pours over both of them, just as her smile pours over her features; scrunching up her nose and wrinkling her eyes. She stares with delight at the part of the matchbox that S can’t see.

“The inexplicable.”

Something about her demeanour... so calm... so sure... so improbably _happy..._ nudges something fragile in the core of his being; it teeters precariously on some edge, then falls and shatters. S scrubs shaking fingers across his cheekbones and finds that they are wet.

The girl raises her eyes to him. “Believe me... _‘it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all’_.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A long time.” She looks him up and down as if appraising his height. “I needed help.”

In a few moments, S finds himself with small feet on his shoulders, as the tiny form balances there, reaching up toward the ceiling. He waits for the sound of her hand contacting glass and, when it doesn’t happen, looks up. “Oh.”

“Yup.” With a grunt, she hauls herself over the edge of mirror-well and disappears. A moment later, her face peers back down at him, hovering over the black border that is lit from behind by her small light in her hands. “No ceiling after all. Optical illusion. Okay, well... thanks.” She turns to leave.

He feels foolish, knowing that it is ridiculous to ask, yet still needing to suppress the urge to beg for her hand to impossibly pull him up out of the dark cell. “Listen... please... you need to tell someone I’m here. Tell them that this is where they need to come to find Sherlock Holmes...”

She blinks at him, and although there is nothing in her expression or tone to indicate malevolence, the lost detective feels suddenly cold at her next recitation. “You have a magnificent brain, Moffat. I admire it.”

“What?! Who’s...? No, no, I’m _Sherlock._ ”

Her sudden smirk is clearly lit from below her chin. “But you’re really _not,_ you know.”

He looks up at her, feeling his own mouth twitch slightly into a snarl. _Brat._ He wrangles his expression and tone into neutral. “You can’t just leave me here.”

“Well, I can’t lift you out.” In the dimness, she surveys his cell and blows exasperated air out her teeth. Then grins. “Hey... what’s the ground made out of... maybe you can break it?” Winks. “Your feet aren’t _chained,_ are they?”

S feels the panic returning to the base of his spine. The dull voice that falls from his mouth doesn’t even sound like his own. “People will be looking for me.”

“I’m sure they will.” The little girl laughs lightly. “For a while anyway.” Then her face and the light is gone... the glow above the mirror well’s lip quickly receding with her departing steps. Her response is faint; far away and growing further. “Don’t worry, Steve! Catch you later...”

 _She’ll tell someone,_ S thinks frantically. _Of course she will..._ But the doubt ascends each vertebrae with exponential speed. _The foolish girl can’t even remember a NAME for thirty seconds; she’ll probably get distracted by the next shiny bauble she passes..._

John. John will never stop looking.

But not for a “Steve.”

His fists pound on the glass as he cries out futilely to the void. “PLEASE! Tell them who I am... TELL THEM WHO I REALLY AM!”

Silence.

His breath, shuddering humidly in the inch in front of his face, fogs the mirror that he can no longer see.

Unfathomable darkness.

Then, an unbearable minute later, a slight scuffling, dragging sound; far, then near. The glow reappears on the edge, followed by a bemused smile. “Does that matter?”

His fisted hands flatten out on the glass. _Touche._

“Yes,” he admits.

“I know.” She tosses the rope down to him. “I just wanted to hear _you_ say it.”

 

...

 

It was early in the year, in middle of that span of relative peace between the last war and the next, that my dear friend of many adventures and I found ourselves suddenly upon the queerest mystery we had ever faced.

“What do you make of it?” I had asked, nudging the charred remains with my toe.

Holmes had stooped to sniff the smoldering wafts and inspect a broken mask. “Fire. Obviously.”

“I thought it was the Globe that burned down.” I had mused. “Not St. James.”

He had given me a sharp look. “Fourth wall, Watson.”

“Right. Sorry. So, do you think it was accidental or deliberate?”

He stood. “Accidental. Careless fools.”

“I was so looking forward to seeing more from that Wilde fellow,” said I, aware of the trace of melancholy apparent in my voice.

“Watson, dear chap... you despair as if the very narrative itself has been lost.” He flashed a bright eye at me. “Everything is archived elsewhere, after all. The show, as they say, must go on.” Then his gaze dropped again. He had knelt, nudging the debris, as if one picking up a scent.

“What is it?”

That smile. The one that always pours slowly over his lips like honey.

“A mystery.”

...

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Run. You clever fans.


End file.
